


a life of safety (and the risks therein)

by orphan_account



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Anxiety Disorder, Disordered Eating, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Trans Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:14:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21704500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The problem with knowing that you could die at any moment - well, apart from the obvious, of course - is not knowing exactly when it will happen.That's the worst part, Connor thinks. The uncertainty of it all. He can't predict it, can't find the when or how or why beneath all of the checking and re-checking.Then again, he could never have predicted Hank, either.-Or, two listless bodies find each other in a city of sickness.
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. a bad day

**Author's Note:**

> TW for this chapter (and the rest of the work): anxiety-based compulsions and obsessions surrounding health/sickness, disordered eating, suicidal ideation, a lot of anxious inner thoughts and also self-hate, Connor is generally just a very sad, afraid person and it reflects on his actions and friendship with North which can be read as unhealthily codependent

Connor wakes with a start, chest heaving, staring up at the stained ceiling of their shitty apartment. He can’t remember his dream, already feels it slipping through his fingers like sand, but he knows it was a nightmare. It’s almost always a nightmare.

When his hands reach up to brush against his thrumming pulse, he decides that maybe today is going to be a bad day.

He can already feel the fringes of his anxiety creeping in, darkness lingering behind every thought. He doesn’t want to move, fearing that the pain will set in as soon as he does.

He can hear North singing from the kitchen, probably making breakfast and dancing around like she usually does. She tries so hard to get Connor out of bed most days - and even when it ends in an argument, she keeps trying, keeps telling him that today will be better, even though it’s always a lie.

Well-intentioned, maybe, but still a lie.

Connor rolls onto his aching stomach and presses his face into the pillows, eyes already stinging with frustrated tears. This isn’t fair. This isn’t _fair. _The pain in his chest is bright and impossible to ignore, along with the stiffness of his joints and the dull ache behind his temples. He wants to go back to sleep - at least he won’t be able to feel it, if he dies in his sleep. North will find him and call an ambulance, but it will be far too late, and then Connor will finally be able to _rest._

The feeling of dread that sinks into his gut at the thought is familiar. Disgusting.

He remembers the doctors, the therapists, the concerned faces of the friends he left behind. The way they’d all look at him, pitying, afraid that any wrong step would push him over the edge.

They tried their best. Three years of extensive therapy and too many doctors’ appointments later, and their best wasn’t good enough. His friends tried to stay in touch, but he was always too good at shutting them all out, and eventually, they stopped calling. Sometimes Markus still sends Christmas cards. Connor never replies.

The only thing keeping him from complete destruction, Connor thinks, is North.

He ignores the little voice in the back of his head that says maybe she isn’t enough.

Connor realises he’s suffocating and pulls his face away from the pillows. Tells himself he doesn’t want to smother himself. Lies to himself.

He rests on his side, hands tangled in his threadbare shirt, brushing the outline of ribs under thin fabric.

The soft glow of the fish tank in his peripheral lulls him back to almost-sleep. He watches the fish North bought him swim lazily in circles, feeling like maybe he relates to it. It doesn’t have a name, really. Connor just calls it Fish.

He tries his best to keep it alive, forcing himself out of bed once a day to feed it, once a week to clean the tank. The fish and North, Connor decides, are really the only things he has left. One of them doesn’t even acknowledge his presence.

He dozes for a while, lingering in that state of consciousness where the anxiety can’t quite get to him. Stupid that he can fall asleep when he needs to get up, but he’s wide awake when night falls. Even that, he can’t find the motivation to care about. Maybe it’s better that way.

He watches the dim red lights from his digital clock tick away. Minutes start to pass, seconds blurring together, until all he sees is numbers. There’s a weight on Connor’s shoulders, pressing him down into the bed. He wonders if, one day, he’ll sink down into the mattress, get swallowed by the blankets, disappear into his own home, never to be seen again.

He blinks back into full awareness when the bright light of outside assaults his eyes, a yellow glow blinding him through dry eyelids.

It takes longer than it should to sit up. Connor scrubs at his face and glares at the thin shaft of sunlight that managed to break through his curtains. He hasn’t cleaned his room in a while. It’s dusty.

(Dust leads to polluted air leads to lung cancer leads to death)

Maybe he should clean his room.

Connor scratches at a phantom itch in his arm, watches particles of dust float between the light of the sun and the dim blue glow of his fish tank. He stops breathing.

There’s a knock on his bedroom door.

“Connor? You up?”

North’s voice is overly cheerful. Forced. Why she continues to push herself to keep Connor alive is a mystery. She should leave, take up that job offer that’s been sitting on the kitchen counter for months, get on with her life in New York. Connor can – he can stay here, gather dust like an abandoned photograph of the year everyone wants to forget.

“Connor?”

Connor hums his assent, throat too dry for talking. His chest is starting to burn.

“I made breakfast if you feel like eating. Coffee, too.”

He can almost _hear_ the blinding smile in her voice. She shouldn’t have to do this, shouldn’t need to pretend that everything’s okay when it’s not.

Connor doesn’t eat, not when he feels like this, not when it could quickly destroy him from the inside. One calorie too many, a grain of salt in the wrong place, and – well.

Coffee might be nice, though.

He breathes again, gasping for air. He hadn’t realised.

“…I’ll be out in a second,” he croaks.

North pretends not to be surprised. She always does. Connor knows that she expects him to still be asleep.

“Take your time.”

She leaves, footsteps echoing in the narrow hallway. Connor stands up on legs weakened from underuse, staggers to his closet.

He ignores his binder – (shortness of breath can lead to blackouts could lead to falling down the stairs and death) – and clutches an oversized grey hoodie to his chest instead, burying his face in the soft fabric, shakily breathing in the scent of dust and washing detergent. The smell is – comforting, somehow. Familiar.

He gets changed and does his best to ignore the blatant disarray of his outfit. He always looks like this – disorganised, exhausted, one step away from collapsing. It’s his thing.

His bedroom door creaks when he opens it. There’s no turning back now.

“Morning, sunshine,” North says when he rounds the corner to the living room. She holds out a steaming mug. “Coffee?”

“Thank you.”

Connor moves to sit down at the counter, cradling the warm ceramic between his hands. North slides a plate of fruit across the surface with a small, knowing smile.

“I really don’t think – ”

“You need to keep your energy up today,” North chides. “Remember? Support group?”

“Oh. Right.”

Connor glares at a lonely slice of apple, then picks it up and dunks it into his coffee. He chews it mutinously, washes it down with more coffee.

North stifles her laugh behind a fake cough.

“It tastes like ash, North,” Connor says, defensive. “Why do people eat it? Why do people _eat?”_

“Because food, whether you think so or not, is _good for you.”_

Connor hums noncommittally.

“So. Support group. Tell me about it?” North slides into the chair next to him, taking a long sip of her own drink.

“There’s – not really much to say. You know most of what goes on there.”

“Well, yeah, but – ” North rolls her eyes. “What are the people like? You barely talk about them. How’s Lucy?”

“They’re fine.”

“Yeah, see, you say they’re fine, but you don’t talk about _why _they’re fine. How’s their job? Any new pets?”

She’s insufferable. She takes another long sip of her drink and lifts up the mug, which obscures everything but her eyes, glinting mischievously from beneath her messy bangs.

_Insufferable._

“They still work at the mental health centre, like they _have_ for the past _three years_. They got a haircut, I guess. And – ” Connor sighs, “ – and they got a cat. I think. A rescue.”

“See, now you’re getting it,” North grins. “We’ll make a proper citizen out of you yet, Stern.”

Connor waves her off. “Yeah, yeah.”

He risks another bite of fruit, fighting off anxiety-laden thoughts in favour of focusing on the lone freckle behind North’s left eye.

“It’s not that I don’t want to know about them. I just – I don’t talk to people. They’re all so confusing, and full of sickness, and - ”

“I know,” North says. “But you do realise that standing in the corner of the room like a ghoul isn’t going to help you learn, is it?”

Connor sighs. “I suppose not.”

“Hey,” North pokes him in the chest, grinning. “You’ll get there one day. We’ll throw a party, yeah? The first time you meet a friend’s family, we’ll throw a motherfucking party. It’ll be the talk of the town.”

“The town, like the entire city of Detroit?”

“Well, maybe not that much of the town,” North rolls her eyes. “But that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m _saying _is that one day you’ll have more friends than just me. You’ll have people to hang with when I’m at work and stuff.”

“Right.”

The thought of being around other people for extended periods is – unpleasant. Connor remembers the one time that North got really sick, and how he couldn’t even help her because he was too busy pulling his hair out in his bedroom, panicking and breathing through faux-pains, afraid that every breath would be his last. Having more friends only increases the risk of going through that again, and Connor – well, he’d rather stay safe in his tiny bubble of decontamination, thank you very much.

Which, maybe, is also why he hates himself so much.

God, he’s pathetic.

Connor shakes his head, stares blankly out the window. His chest hurts. Suddenly, he’s reminded of how dangerous caffeine can be. He pushes his coffee away.

The urge to vomit surfaces.

“Alright, I’ve gotta go get changed for work.” North nudges his shoulder as she stands up, groaning like it hurts. “You should eat some more. I feel like Lucy’s psychic powers can pick up on when you don’t.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

The second she steps out of the room, Connor gets up and pours his coffee down the sink, disposes of the barely-eaten breakfast on his plate.

He grips the edges of the sink and hangs his head, shuddering through a wave of nausea and anxiety so intense it makes him dizzy.

To distract himself from the looming fear of death, Connor busies himself with the dishes. When he and North had moved in together, they’d agreed that North would make breakfast and Connor would clean – Connor couldn’t be trusted with the food, and North’s entire life would have consisted of disposable paper plates and grime if she had to deal with dirty dishes.

Connor likes the routine of it. Maybe.

He hates how sad his life is, that if he had it his way, breakfast would consist of a handful of dry cereal and water. He hates that he has to be treated like a child to function as a human being. That he’s too fucking useless to even feed himself.

He imagines he drowns himself in the soapy water, fingers tightening around North’s mug.

Connor hears North’s bedroom door open a few minutes later, and tenses, feeling her eyes bore into the back of his head, like she knows exactly how much of a failure he is.

“Alright,” North says. She doesn’t sound suspicious – or does she? Connor can’t tell. He can never tell. “I’m off to work. I’ll see you at five, yeah? Call if you need me, or – yeah, call me.”

Connor nods and doesn’t turn around.

“Bye,” he chokes out around the lump in his throat.

(Cancer?)

Their apartment door clicks shut seconds later.

Connor slumps against the counter, rubs at his face. His eyes are dry. He’s exhausted already, mind slipping away to that far-away space it always goes to when Connor knows he has to push through the pain in order to survive the day.

He doesn’t know how long he stays hunched over in the kitchen before he forces himself to straighten his back, tugging at his sleeves to even them out. He finishes drying and putting away the dishes and then picks his phone up off the dining table, along with his keys and the sad little bottle of hand-sanitiser that continually calls for his attention, and stashes them in his bag.

Connor slings the strap over his shoulder. He opens the door – and, before he can think twice about leaving the house and decide that maybe support group is stupid anyway and he’s maybe better off just staying home because it’s not like he does much else anyway – before he can think all that, he steps outside and locks the door behind him, swallowing down the fear that keeps trying to drown him.

Connor doesn’t know what the future holds, can’t control the outcome of his decisions, even if he tries his hardest to do so.

He just presses his fingers to his pulse and he thinks that maybe today is going to be a bad day.


	2. Static

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Everything from last chapter applies here, more anxiety/suicide talk, brief mention of a person recovering from sexual assault but nothing graphic

Lucy’s support group is held in the downtown mental health centre. Which, really, should be sad, Connor thinks – but Lucy does their best to make sure that it doesn’t _feel_ sad. The back room where the group meets is a bright array of eye-burning colour, walls coated in supportive posters that generally have the same tagline, something like ‘hang in there’ or ‘it gets better’.

It’s cliché, maybe, but somehow Lucy makes it charming.

He ends up getting there early, due to getting lucky in the morning Detroit traffic. Which means that he has to wait in the lobby amongst posters that a nearby doctor’s clinic puts up next to the reception desk, trying and failing to ignore the images of people coughing and washing their hands that present themselves to him.

His fingers are glued to his neck the entire time.

There aren’t many other people in the lobby. It’s still pretty early in the morning, and it’s not like establishments like this are frequented by vast amounts of traffic. Connor only ever comes because he knows he has to, is afraid North would hate him if he didn’t.

So Connor sits in awkward silence, avoiding eye contact with the person sitting across the room, whose gaze keeps flicking nervously back to him, making the skin on the back of Connor’s neck stand up.

He wishes he hadn’t come early – well, he wishes he hadn’t come at all, but he doesn’t want to admit it to himself, doesn’t want to admit to being such an epic failure of a human being. He just wants to get it over with, and then maybe he can crawl back into bed and pretend that he’s someone else, someone successful and healthy and unafraid.

In the meantime, Connor fidgets with his sleeves, trying to dispel his nervous energy without drawing attention to his compulsions. He hates checking in public, always feels like everyone can read his thoughts and figure out how much of a mess he is.

It doesn’t do much to stop him, though. His traitorous body acts up again, muscles in his leg twitching abnormally.

(Tumour? Brain damage? Muscular degenerative disease?)

Connor startles when the automatic doors slide open and a new person steps into the building, wild autumn wind sweeping a few stray leaves in beneath their feet.

“I’m, uh, here to see, uh – I think their name was Lucy?” There’s a rustle as he digs through his pockets, and he hands something to the receptionist. “Yeah, Lucy.”

The newcomer isn’t speaking loudly – in fact, it seems like he’s trying to speak quietly enough to not be heard by anyone, but it’s so empty, and Connor’s senses are already on high, so he overhears it anyway. He feels rude.

The receptionist informs the stranger that he, too, is early, and tells him to kindly take a seat while the group sets up.

And, as though the universe is actively trying to torture Connor, the stranger decides to sit down two seats away, presence suddenly looming much closer than comfortable, impossible to ignore.

He’s middle-aged. Tall. Imposing, but obviously trying to make himself look inconspicuous. Medium-length, greying hair frames his face.

Connor thinks that maybe, if he were less of a coward, he would say hello. But this man probably doesn’t want to be bothered, and Connor – well, he doesn’t want to be a bother, and he wouldn’t even know where to start.

He realises he’s staring and looks away, insides tying themselves in knots while he mentally berates himself for being such an insolent piece of shit.

Connor looks down at his phone, trying to count the seconds until he can make his escape. When he inevitably loses focus, anxiety making his attention wander away from the safety of numbers, his fingers fly to align the sides of his face, chest constricting in fear.

He repeats the action twice, fingers brushing the corners of his mouth, his nose, his eyes and eyebrows. It would be easier if he had a mirror. Maybe he should buy a mirror.

He makes a note on his phone to buy a mirror.

After he decides that maybe it was just another intrusive thought and he’s not actually having a stroke, Connor fights the urge to curl into himself and scream. Instead, he straightens his back and grips his knees, the stinging bite of his fingers piercing through the protective layer of dark denim and distracting him from his frustration.

The seconds continue to tick by in silence before finally, the clock on the wall reaches eleven. Lucy usually lets them filter in at their own pace, but Connor always gets in as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, the mystery newcomer seems to have the same idea. They stand up at the same time, and Connor accidentally makes eye contact, and then he’s panicking inwardly because he looked away too fast and maybe he’s being rude but at the same time he’s sure this other person doesn’t want to look at him because he looks nervous and disgusting and he was just checking in public like an _idiot _and –

He takes a deep breath, tries to steady his thoughts. It doesn’t work, but he pretends it does, and hurries along into the hallway, ducking his head as his shoulder brushes the stranger’s, overthinking again.

“Connor!” Lucy smiles when he walks through the door – cheerfully decorated with pictures of Lucy’s various cats. “It’s good to see you again!”

They always say that.

“I hope – I’m not too early, am I?” Connor asks, failing to keep the anxious note out of his voice.

“No, not at all; you’re just on time,” Lucy says. They gesture at the middle of the room, where several brightly-coloured plastic chairs are arranged in a circle. “Take a seat! We’ll wait for some more people to get here before we start.”

Connor chooses the chair furthest from the doorway and hesitantly sits down. He never really knows how to act around Lucy – less so than around other people. With other people, Connor knows how to appeal to pessimism and the simple goal of survival, but with Lucy, it’s different. Their happiness is disarming, and they always seem to know what to say.

North may be joking when she says that Lucy might be a mind reader, but Connor often finds himself wondering if it’s true.

A few moments later, the tall stranger from the lobby ducks through the door, eyes scanning the room like he’s looking for something.

“I don’t think I recognise you,” Lucy says. “What’s your name?”

The stranger scratches at the back of his neck. Somehow, even standing nearly a foot and a half taller than Lucy, he seems unsure of himself. Lucy has that effect on people.

“Uh, Hank. My name’s Hank.”

Lucy nods, perfectly agreeable. “Nice to meet you, Hank. I’m Lucy. Will you be speaking or listening today, do you think?”

Hank blinks. “Uh. Listening, I guess. We, uh, we have a choice?”

Lucy nods again. “Of course. We get some people that just like to listen and don’t feel like they need to share their experiences – like Connor here.”

Connor shrinks into himself.

“ – but we also get some who like to speak and feel listened to. It’s a matter of preference and comfort zones.” Lucy shrugs. “Here, take a seat – the others should be arriving soon.”

Hank sits halfway between Connor and the door. In a blue chair. It matches Hank’s eyes.

_Creep._

He looks away.

“Now, I do have to ask you to write down any specific triggers on a slip of paper before we begin, seeing as you’re new.” Lucy starts, handing Hank a trigger slip and a pen. “We don’t ever announce which triggers belong to who, but we do discuss them before speaking to make sure nobody will be harmed.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

Hank looks slightly bemused, like he didn’t expect this level of depth. Nobody ever expects Lucy to be such a good person at heart – the newcomers are always surprised. Connor still can’t wrap his head around it.

He sits and watches while more people start to arrive – some regulars and a few stragglers who show up every now and then. Most of them greet Connor quietly, some even sparing a smile. Rupert sits next to him and signs _hello _in ASL, and Connor returns the gesture.

Once everyone has settled in, Lucy cycles through the triggers to be sensitive about and then lets the more talkative of the members speak.

Chloe explains how her recovery from her sexual assault has been affecting her. She’s always been very willing to talk about it because she says that the more people who know, the less alone she feels. Connor doesn’t understand how she can do it, how she can just stand in front of a room of strangers and talk about her trauma. He admires her. He fears her.

Kara chimes in about halfway through the session. She vents about the struggles of dealing with her own trauma as well as supporting her child through theirs. She explains how hard it is to support another person when she can barely support herself.

Throughout it all, Connor spends most of his time listening, trying his best to empathise. Sometimes his focus will waver, and he will recheck his symptoms. He still feels the familiar burn of shame, but it’s less intense than doing it anywhere else. Nobody pays attention to it here. They’re either used to it or understand the struggles of compulsions themselves.

He wonders what North would talk about, if she ever came with him. Maybe she’d feel the same as Kara – exhausted by supporting another person without being able to figure out her own problems. Maybe she’d talk about all the job offers she’s been getting, and how she can’t take any of them because she doesn’t want to move away from the leech occupying her attention, the burden on her shoulders.

Connor stops thinking, after that.

When nobody else wants to talk, Lucy brings out some tea and coffee and lets everybody have their own conversations or gravitate to their own circles.

Connor usually just talks to Lucy, or sometimes Chloe. He likes Rupert, but he doesn’t know enough ASL to hold a conversation, and the others are all so different and hard to read that Connor has never bothered to get too attached.

He’s lingering around the fringes of the group when he accidentally bumps into another person’s shoulder, and he stumbles back, feeling as though he’s been burned.

“Shit, sorry,” it’s the same man from earlier. Hank. His voice is deep and rough, like somebody poured honey over gravel. It shouldn’t sound as nice as it does. He turns to look at Connor with those piercing blue eyes. “Are you okay?”

Connor blinks. “Oh. No.”

Alarm flashes in Hank’s gaze. Connor rushes to continue, stumbling over his words.

“But – wait, sorry. No, I’m fine. I just – a friend once told me not to say yes because she could tell I was lying so I stopped saying yes to that question except physically I’m fine right now so it was a bad answer and I’m really just kind of afraid. Of everything. But you didn’t need to know that because it’s personal and stupid and now I’m just talking because I don’t know what to say and maybe I should stop. I should stop. But I’m fine.”

Hank looks at him for a few more seconds before he does this little laugh that echoes around in Connor’s head, all deep and rumbly and attractive.

“I actually do the same thing, you know?” Hank says. “Everyone always asks ‘are you okay’ and expects either a lie or a life story. But telling them ‘no’ always disarms them and stops them from asking more questions.”

“Because you know they won’t let you isolate yourself but you try your best anyway,” Connor says, somehow still talking. “Yes. I know the feeling.”

Hank laughs again, eyes crinkling up at the corners.

“I’m Hank,” he says, holding out his hand.

Connor never touches other people’s hands if he can help it, afraid of the diseases and the contamination and the uncleanliness. But he shakes Hank’s hand anyway because he likes the feeling of the warmth and the callouses and the fact that it’s the first human contact he’s had for months. He can deal with the inevitable anxiety later.

“Connor. Is my name.”

“Connor,” Hank repeats. And that – it’s nice, hearing it in Hank’s voice. “Well, nice to meet you, I guess. Sorry I bowled you over back there.”

“It’s – fine,” Connor says. And then, because he doesn’t know what to say next: “You’re new here.”

Something dark and inexplicably sad passes over Hank’s gaze, but before Connor can retract his words, it’s gone.

“Yeah. My captain at the DPD told me I could either get help or get the fuck out of his station, so I’m here now.”

“Is that – okay?”

Hank shrugs. “He’s an old friend of mine. If it had been anyone else, I would’ve just turned in my badge and gun then and there. But Fowler’s a good man, and I guess it doesn’t hurt to do stuff like this every now and then.”

He looks at Connor’s face again. Calculating.

“And you? Lucy seems to know you pretty well. You come here often?”

“Unfortunately,” Connor says. Hank snorts.

“Ah, well, at least you left the house, right? That’s what I always tell myself.”

Connor doesn’t say that outside the house is dangerous and terrifying.

“I suppose that’s a good way of looking at it,” Connor says instead.

“Eh, it’s gotten me this far.”

It’s said jokingly, but the sadness that echoes through those words reaches Connor easily.

A phone jingles somewhere close and Hank curses, reaching into his pockets.

“Ah, shit, I gotta go.”

“Work?”

“Something like that,” Hank says. He sighs. “Well, this was nice. I guess I’ll be seeing you around, Connor.”

“I guess so.”

Hank gives him one last sad smile before he turns away, bidding Lucy farewell on his way out. Connor watches him go, chest empty and collapsing in on itself. He taps his fingers where they rest against his jugular, thoughts catching up to him.

He’d spoken to someone new. He’d shaken their hand, touched them, held a conversation with them without panicking.

North is going to have a field day.

Connor doesn’t know when it happens exactly, or what triggered it, but the thoughts sneak up on him on the bus ride back to their apartment.

He has a few precious seconds to think of the irony of it all before he has to pull the collar of his hoodie up over his mouth and nose and pretend that breathing no longer hurts him.

He thinks of the asbestos that could have been in the walls, the particles of bacteria floating among the dust. Carcinogens, viruses, second-hand smoke, pollution.

He coughs, lungs aching with nothing to expel but air. He does it again, and again, muscles around his ribs objecting sharply, pain shooting through his chest. His fingers reach for his wrist, thoughts spinning wildly out of control.

People give him odd looks. He wonders with some dull spark of bitter amusement if it’s because he looks as sick as he feels.

When the bus reaches Connor’s stop, he stumbles out and onto the sidewalk, gasping for air – the same air that multiplies the panic tenfold. He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t have any way of contacting North, or an ambulance, or anything. His phone is flat.

His phone charger is still on his bed. He sees it in his mind’s eye, focuses enough to force himself to take another step forward, staggering into his apartment complex. Locks himself in the elevator and hyperventilates, growing dizzier by the second, overwhelmed by the loss of control. He keeps coughing, trying to ignore the vivid pain in his ribs.

He needs to get his charger. Call North. He needs – something.

He fumbles with his keys at the door, hands shaking, head spinning. When he manages to turn key in lock and trip over the threshold, he slumps against the wall, sinking slowly to his knees on the ground, eyes stinging, body trembling. He wishes he could stop breathing, but he’s taking in too much air to focus, chest constricted in fear.

The first tears slide down his cheeks, and then they don’t stop coming. Saline drips down onto the floor below him, face twisting as his hands fly up to cover his mouth, grab at his hair. A complete loss of control, leaving him unsure and alone and afraid.

He gasps and sobs and shudders through spikes of panic until the fight has drained out of him and his mind retreats, leaving him numb and shaking.

Connor stays there on the floor until his legs start to tingle, tears drying to sticky residue on his face. He scrubs at his eyes and climbs to his feet, tilting his head back to thump against the wall. He’s tired.

The numb feeling slowly turns to shame. Connor imagines the slide of a knife. He walks over to the couch and sits down, hands trembling, staring at the blank television screen. Turns, slowly, mechanically, and takes the remote in his fingers, flicking to the channel where there’s only ever just – static.

Static. His mind turns to static.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end sequence is a slightly dramatised version of an experience I have like once a month. Which is fun I guess.
> 
> Sometimes life just kicks you in the balls and decides that it's not gonna stop until you're on the floor bleeding from your mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> hi yes this is terribly self-indulgent i'm basically just projecting my anxiety/eating problems/phobias onto a character with the same name as me.  
am i sorry? nn...no?


End file.
